Google is the most visited website in the world. That distinction doesn’t come easily as 4.2 billion people are active users of the Internet. Google claims to process around 3.5 billion search queries per day, or 1.2 trillion searches per year. As a result, it has become the world’s most successful advertising site, which can actually be a hindrance for users looking to get information about a subject.

To give you a better idea of the problem we’re referring to, let’s shine a light on an all-too-common example; website search features that don’t support quotation marks. With a more robust search tool like Google Search, users have the ability to search for exact phrases by adding quotation marks before and after the phrase. Without this quotation mark feature, a search tool will provide results pertaining to every word in the phrase, making the results potentially worthless.

Make Use of Ctrl+FFor websites lacking this search feature, you can combine the in-site search with your browser’s search tool to narrow down what you’re looking for. To do this, simply enter your query into the website's search form like you normally would, then hit Enter to display the results.

If the results provided aren’t to your liking, you can narrow the results down by selecting Ctrl+F. This will cause a drop down menu to appear where you can enter a second word relating to what you’re looking for. Upon doing this, every corresponding word that’s specifically displayed on the web page will be highlighted. You can then cycle through these highlighted words to better find what you need.

Use Google to Specifically Search a WebsiteAnother way to accurately search the content of a website is to bypass the website’s search feature altogether by using Google Search. With the website selected that you want to search, enter its URL into Google Search, minus the “http://” and “www.” Before the URL, you will add “site:” to end up with an entry looking like this: site:website.com.

Next, enter whatever it is you want to search for, following the site:website.com. You will then select Enter to display search results pulled only from the website with the matching URL.

Add Quotation Marks to Google’s In-Site SearchWhereas some websites’ search features don’t utilize quotation marks, Google Search does and you can add a phrase in quotation marks following site:website.com to make use of quotes this way. This will essentially achieve what we were showing you with the first tip, but you’ll still want to remember how to combine an in-site search with Ctrl+F because not every website allows Google to crawl all of its content, like websites containing scholarly research, for example.

Using these tips correctly can open up a whole new world of online searching. Did you find these tips to be helpful? Do you have any additional tips to add that will help narrow down online searches even further? Let us know in the comments.

In a recent poll by WSJ/NBC comparing tech companies to US presidential candidates, Google came out on top with 67 percent of respondents having a positive opinion of the company. Compare this to Apple’s 54 percent, and 43 percent going to the highest-rated candidate. Perhaps Apple and the politicians can take a cue from Google and make use of Easter eggs, because who doesn’t love Easter eggs?

Most search engines are pretty good at keeping malicious websites out of your search results, but just like any other piece of software on your computer, some search engines do a better job of keeping these threats out of your immediate access. According to TV-Test, a German independent testing lab, there’s a huge difference between the security of the world’s top search engines, like Bing and Google.

Google is the world's most popular search engine, but sometimes it just can't find exactly what you're looking for. This is because Google utilizes algorithms, which don't crunch data the same way that humans do. What we might think is common sense doesn't qualify for Google. Thankfully, there are several different ways you can narrow down Google's search results.

With the NSA and Edward Snowden making headlines around the world, it's enough to make any user of the Internet think twice about online security and wonder if they are being monitored or not. Google Search has been a popular hub for third party monitoring, which makes Internet users ask, "Is there a more secure search engine available?" There is with DuckDuckGo.

In parts one and two, we shared tips on how to search the web. By now, you should be able to hone in your Internet searches and find almost anything you're looking for, but you can't yet call yourself a Search Master.

Last week, we shared four tips to help you search the web and find anything that you're looking for. In part 2, we will take a look at additional search tools that will help you refine your searches so you can become a search master!

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